Monday, December 7, 2009

Tsumugi Uta

By the Rin and Len Vocaloids. It means Spinning Song. Well, yesterday was a big day for me! :P Took the JLPT. I was so nervous before hand. Mainly because I wasn't sure if they would do the instructions and registration in Japanese. O.O They didn't thank goodness. ^_^ For registration we just had to show them our ID and test voucher. The person that looked it mine kept saying hai... uh, hai. It was kind of funny. When she was about to hand my ID back, it dropped and I said gomennasai (or sorry- wasn't sure if it slipped out of my hands or hers. -_-) She said it too, right after me. :D She was just happy that I said something, because everyone else had just shoved their stuff at her. (I guess they were nervous about it too!) They had assigned seating according to your examinee number. I was in the front row. ^_^" The person behind me was a lot more nervous. He did that weird shaky thing with his leg on the back of my chair throughout the test, and he huffed a lot. The answer sheet was in both English and Japanese. The proctor gave the instructions in English too.

The first part was the Vocab section for 25 minutes. I don't think that was too bad of a section for me. :D After those 25 minutes, they let us out for about 20 minutes. Before that we had to turn that section of the test in. I came back early, because it was a pretty long time to wait. Thank goodness I did, because they closed the doors early, and wouldn't let anyone back in. O.O Which was pretty stupid considering they had to start the next section at exactly a certain time. So, we sat there in silence for a while. I think they just wanted to make us sweat. XD

The next part was the listening section for another 25 minutes. The first part of it was not too bad. But, the next part of it was nuts! They didn't write down any of the choices or the questions. (It was just left blank on the test part.) Not only that, but we had to mark the wrong answers on one row of our answer sheet and the correct one on another. O.O So, we had to remember every choice that was said on the recording, and make a decision extremely quickly. The end of each of these questions would be right when the bells rang on the recording. Also, the dialogue was way too exaggerated. -_- After this, we had another 20 minute break. After they closed the doors early, yet again, we heard a knock at the door. Even though we had like 5 minutes left, they wouldn't open the door. O.O It was sad, I hope that person sues them or something.

The last part was the grammar section for 50 minutes. It wasn't too bad. Although, by the time I got to the last couple of questions, I was wiped out from it. :P I had some time left over to look over everything. After we handed this in, they said we won't know our results until February 2010. O.O Also, they warned us about not telling anyone anything specific about the questions and answers. It was like they wanted it to be highly classified or something. (Reminded me of some of those FBI shows. :P) Some of the examinees ran out of there like a bat out of hell. XD It's understandable, but funny to see. I guess I was a lot calmer once I realized all the important stuff was in English. It was interesting to see who took the test. It was mostly people my age, but there were some of my parents' generation, and some that looked like they were 10. I like how almost anyone can sign up to take it. :P Next year's would be interesting considering they're changing the entire test and having 5 levels instead of 4. Levels are based on toughness and this year it was based on Level 4 being the 'easiest' and Level 1 being the 'hardest'. (I took 4. :P) They're also adding a lot more sections to it.

After this, we headed to Uwajimaya. It's an Asian supermarket. Although, it mostly has Japanese products. ^_^ It was really cool to look at the Japanese printed on things. They even had those little good luck charms. A Japanese buddhist shrine, dolls, and games like Go and Shogi. I want to learn Shogi at some point. :P They had rice cookers, shampoos, meds, and bentos. All these things are imported from Japan. It's really like a treasure trove to me. They also have a Japanese bookstore and a food court. I grabbed a free TV Japan guide too. Since I was tired of looking online to see what was on. We got some incense and little cloth- like purses. I didn't get a chance to look at the food products, but maybe next time. ;)

Next, we went to dinner. We ate at a place called Maneki. We first had Takoyaki. It's basically Octopus balls. :P I heard a while back that it was a huge thing over in Osaka, and other restaurants didn't serve it. So, I thought why not? They're like balls of tempura and other spices with bits of octopus in the middle. They drizzle a special sauce on it, and sprinkle Bonito flakes over that. They were very good. I think even better than I thought they would be. The only one that didn't like them was Mom. Oh well, leaves more for us. XD

After that, I had their chicken teriyaki and tempura combo. It was a very flavorful teriyaki sauce, didn't seem like the normal stuff I've had. The chicken was a bit crispier too. I had the shrimp tempura, and was awesome too! Gave the vegetable one to Dad, since I don't eat any of those. The salad for it was good too. The sesame dressing was great! The rice was very sticky, which I love. Next, just when I didn't think I could fit anything more, we got dessert. (The portions on everything are huge!) I got the fried tempura icecream. One of my faves. They use a better green tea icecream, and a poppyseed type cake inbetween that and the tempura along the edge. Again, it was another huge portion. Even though I split it up with Mom, we still couldn't finish it. It was very good though! We also peeked into the tea rooms. It was cool! On the way out they had 2 newspapers that I grabbed. One of them is half in Japanese. :P

I looked up the links in the newspapers today. Also, looked at the local Japanese Cultural Center online. It was awesome! I already subscribed to them to find out what type of events I might want to go to. I also watched the 2 part Alice movie. It was trippy, but funny and cool. They had elements of the original Through the Looking Glass story, but kind of put it into the future with many different twists. They even had the 'house of cards' fall. :P Nice ending too. Tomorrow, I'm going to help put up our Hanukkah decorations.